September 1/03 4:46 am - Masters Worlds DH Story

Posted by Editor on 09/1/03

Bromont, Quebec - American riders dominated the downhill competition at the Masters Mountain Bike World Championships, taking six of eight titles awarded. Quebec City's Pierre Gendron was the sole Canadian winner, in the men's 55-59 years age category. Doug Younie took the only other Canadian medal, a bronze in the men's 45-49 group.

The 57 year old Gendron, who finished second last year, won his first title in five years of trying by a scant margin of 14 one-hundredths of a second over Augustine Jochec of the United States.

"Last year I was second by 12 one-hundredths. I have worked so hard for this. In training I crashed hard and broke my wheel, and there were sections of the course that I could not seem to handle in training. But in the final run I was able to be much more focussed, and all the things that I couldn't do before, I could do for the championship."

The riders in general were very disappointed in the actions of the UCI to deny titles to categories with less than 3 riders (in the past, titles were awarded). Doris Matyasovich, the only 60 plus woman spoke for the group when she said "A woman my age isn't going to take up the sport - I started in 1989 and I have 11 national titles, this was the only title I was missing. We do things that nobody else does; that has to mean something."